THE CITY OF HAMLET:
WORKING TOWARD A
BETTER FUTURE
T
he City of Hamlet has been laying the
groundwork for a more prosperous
future since it raised water and sewer
rates in 2018.
The city was operating water and sewer at
a deficit, and correcting that at the time —
while difficult news to bear for residents —
set the city up to be competitive for grants
to fund renovations at the city’s wastewater
treatment plant. The plant’s low capacity has
put a cap on the city’s growth for decades,
and once these funds are secured, Hamlet
will be more accessible to new development
than ever before.
“That would be major for Hamlet,” said City
Manager Jonathan Blanton. “It’s certainly
more than we need at this time but it’s
certainly done in a forward-thinking spirit
that says, ‘Look, we don’t want to tie the
hands of the city manager or the city council
20 years from now where they’re in the same
position we’re in where we can’t expand,
where we’re stuck.’”
In Blanton’s roughly three-year tenure, the
plant has been placed under a moratorium
by the state multiple times for exceeding
their permitted capacity of wastewater going
into the plant. On an average day the plant
treats 600,000 gallons, and has a maximum
of one million gallons per day, but
hurricanes and heavy rains in recent months
have caused substantially more inflow into
the plant than it is meant to handle before
seeing a drop in water quality.
With the USDA Rural Development grant
the city is applying for, they would be able
to get the plant — which services both
the Hamlet city limits and the Richmond
County Industrial Park — up to a 2.5
million gallon per day capacity, the most
Hamlet has ever had.
"This is something that has been needed
for some time," said Mayor Bill Bayless,
expressing frustration that the city has had
plenty of water capacity but been hamstrung
by wastewater capacity. "Hopefully it will be
18 • PROGRESS 2020
the impetus
for people or
some large
corporation
to come in."
The
renovations
would
include building a new clarifier to replace a
never-used clarifier built in the early 1990s
in preparation for the Imperial Foods plant
reopening, which it never did following
a devastating fire. This clarifier has laid
dormant ever since and wear and tear has
made it inoperable. It has only collected
sludge and debris, as well as money from
the city to pay off the 30-year bond, which is
now nearly paid off.
said the opportunities would be “endless”
for current businesses to grow and for new
businesses who want to come to the area
but in the past knew Hamlet doesn’t have
the sewage capacity to support them. This
expansion will mean new revenue from the
additional industry and potential housing
subdivisions outside the city limits that
could hook on.
If all goes well, Blanton hopes to see work
begin on the renovations in October 2020
to get the city out from under it's current
moratorium and then expand the plant’s
capacity over the following 18 to 24 months. “With that sewer plant being able to do
double-and-a-half what it’s doing now, we
can advertise that we’re open for business
and that we can handle just about anything,”
Blanton said. “It would be a major plus for
both us and the county.”
Because of its wastewater limitations,
Hamlet has had to turn away new businesses
or deny requests for expansions. Blanton Hamlet will close bidding on the project on
Feb. 14 and the City Council will vote to
award the contract in the following weeks.